The Riddles of the Guardian

This game was an enjoyable read and I liked the concept of the characters journey. Many of the scenes has good description and imagery, and I really enjoyed having the option of some character backstory. I liked that there were different paths available to get to the Guardian, and that some of the less optimal paths would not keep you from reaching the goal.

As I started to write this review though, I realize that I have mixed feelings regarding this story. Overall, I enjoyed it, but for me there were a couple areas that definitely took away from the overall positive experience.

Spoilers ahead:

First, even though I enjoyed having different paths to the Guardian, I was disappointed that no matter what I did my friends all died anyway. For me, it began to feel that all my choices were inconsequential, which is not really the point of a CYA. It’s like everything up to the riddles was prologue.

Also, I did enjoy the backstory regarding the secondary characters but never really felt the connection to them in the story, and therefore their deaths didn’t really have much emotional pull. I would have liked more emotional link and tension between them and the main character.

The riddles were fine. They made you think a little, which is good, but were definitely doable. However, basically everything with the endings was determined by what happened with the riddles. It might have been nice for some action between the riddles to kind of break it up.

Overall, this was enjoyable and a pretty solid story. The imagery and descriptions were good, and I thought the action scenes were well paced and well written.

Good:

1. The ambiance and accoutrements, like the background image, character backstories, and cover page, were enjoyable
2. The action scenes were well-choreographed and written, allowing me to picture the substantial amount of action clearly and vividly
3. The way to input the riddle answers was perfectly conceived and executed
4. I like how there were different ways that the journey went depending on which options you chose- although the end result wasn't much different (your friends died no matter what), the variations in the journey made for a richer read with multiple playthroughs
5. I enjoyed a lot of the charming little details, from the names in the story and number of epilogues to Rowan's way of speaking and being the rare CYS story set in an Africa-like setting


Bad:

1. There could be more atmosphere in the writing; aside from the action scenes, I had difficulty picturing the interior of the pyramid due to the lack of non-visual sensory detail and description
2. The dialogues were mostly underwritten. They read more like the characters were just telling us what the writer wanted us to know at that moment than realistic words that those characters would have said
3. A lot of the choices ending in death had no or overly vague clues alluding to the outcome, giving us no way to tell which option would lead to death. Riddle games should be based on skill, not luck.


Ugly:

1. There were a lot of misspelled words and punctuation errors, particularly with commas
2. Some of the text was recycled when it did not make sense to do so, like saying I couldn't prevent Rowan and Iso from dying by certain traps when they didn't die by those traps, or the sphinx telling us there's an hourglass room to lay our friends to rest in and then not giving us a key when we get 1 riddle correct
3. I liked the first riddle the best, as I haven't seen it before in this form, and its difficulty level and the clues were perfectly done. The third riddle I've seen many times before elsewhere, but still considered it appropriate for this game and fun for readers who haven't seen it before. The second riddle, however, was almost impossible to answer. Not because I couldn't make sense of the clues, which I did easily, but because the solution could be worded in a million different ways based on the way the riddle was asked, and there was no way for me to know which way the riddle-maker had in mind for the solution to be worded. The second riddle needs to be reworked.

Overall, there were enough good ideas in this story to warrant at least a 5/8, but a few flaws and lack of epicness prevent it from being rated much more highly.

There is definite potential here - however, as much as I wanted to like it, it did have its shortcomings.

For starters we have an interesting title page and an even more interesting background to each page. At first I considered it to be an eyesore honestly, but after a bit I managed to just ignore it. Don't know how everyone else may feel about it though.

The writing is not the worst. It's coherent, easy to read, but it could greatly benefit with some more tweaking and proofreading. I'd say Rowan's dialogue is the least coherent part of the writing, although I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that that was intentional and that the dwarves of this world have some other language or something that makes them speak in this sort of broken dialect. I spotted a few spelling issues here in there, ("vibrantly" is "vibrantlyl", "cannot" is "can not", "allow" is "alow", among others), but they were infrequent for the most part and nothing particularly jarring. I spotted some errors in grammar and punctuation, like the wrong use of your/you're, an occasional missing quotation mark in dialogue, and some missing apostrophes, but like the spelling errors, nothing too frequent or annoying. I will say that the sentence structure can seem choppy from time to time or just straight up off (the phrase "his head with the bushy black beard" just seems strange to me), which can impact the flow of the writing.

Now onto the story itself. The pacing was okay, but there were many times where it felt like the story was sluggish and dragging on and on for no reason at all. For a story boasting about a mighty guardian and their riddles, it sure does like to take its sweet ol' time to get to these riddles. The guardian presents these riddles and you have to type them out one letter at a time, which is pretty neat. The answers to these riddles are found in the story as you explore the pyramid, though they're not at all obvious. I feel I probably could've done better with the riddles if the descriptions of the setting weren't so easy to gloss over. While they do paint a good picture of the setting and what the MC and his friends see as they explore the pyramid, it's all done in a way that's almost lifeless. There's a whole lot of nothing - plenty of description, but the atmosphere falls drastically short. This makes it very difficult to immerse oneself in the action and the setting, especially when you have to pay attention to your surroundings in order to get the riddle answers. Nothing sticks out enough for you to know it's something important.

I think the characters suffer the same plight. Especially towards the beginning of the story, there's a lot of telling instead of showing in terms of characters' personalities (sometimes outright explaining the different traits of Rowan and Isolda). The flashbacks do a bit of a better job at some characterization, but by the time these flashbacks even come around, (SPOILERS) my two companions are already dead. It's too late fr me to emphasize and care about them by then, and that makes their deaths and struggles anticlimactic and more ineffective than they should be. I want to feel for these characters the way I'm supposed to, but they feel so lifeless at times that it's a struggle to care, and by the time there is some kind of decent characterization, it's too late.

Another thing I wanted to mention was the maturity rating: this has a 3/8 in maturity despite numerous F-bombs and the like throughout the story. If I were you I'd maybe adjust that appropriately.

Overall, this story wasn't the worst, and the riddles were interesting to try and solve; however, the setting and characters were anything but. This could do with some more revision and proofreading. Otherwise, this isn't bad at all, and does have some potential. 4/8.

A good editor might have gone a long way on my own comment as well.

This story might be a little underrated. I good editor would have gone a long way.

An engaging plot that is let down by the clunky writing which is disappointing considering how neat this little story is. The writing is fine it just didn't flow together well and I notice a couple grammar mistakes throughout the story. The plot on the other hand was much better I enjoyed the characters and the riddles were pretty interesting and difficult.

Overall a good story.

I finally managed to beat all three riddles!
This is a good adventure, and I was surprised at how much I ended up caring for the adventures, which is the reason I tried so long to get enough money to bring them back. The second riddle could be reworked, as I stumbled upon several wrong answers that should be correct.
Other than that, this is rather enjoyable storygame. 6/8

I don't think I read the original but I liked this, good story and good job taking the time to do a rewrite. This is how puzzle games should be, with some plot written in.

The first page with the picture of the pyramid looks messed up on my phone though, is it supposed to have that line through it? The parchment on the rest looks fine though and it isn't too distracting for the text.

This was pretty interesting. There’s a fair bit of interesting backstory at the start, which continues even when you go into the pyramid.

The pyramid section is in gauntlet style, which I don’t like very much. Also, I don’t like the way the deaths of the main character’s friends were presented. They happen really quickly and without the characters actually doing much, which doesn’t really make the reader feel sad. That sadness should obviously be the intent with death scenes.

Then it’s the three riddles. I could only get 2/3 but they were good to try and work out. The epilogue I got was written well so I’m just going to assume the other three were similar.

Now, some feedback for the game in general. Your writing was engaging, but there’s spelling mistakes sprinkled through the whole thing, which is pretty frustrating. More proofreading would have helped you to get a better rating. I’m giving you a 4, but it’s a good 4. If you fixed up some small mistakes it would be a 5. Good story though!

I am awful at riddles so I didn't get to experience all of the endings but from ones I got to it was a decently enjoyable experience. I really enjoyed the personal stories the characters would share about their past intimate interactions, it gave a good image of the bonds they shared. Im not sure if it was answered after the riddles but I'd love some lore on what the Pyramid is and who its occupants are, it would add a lot of depth to world and more weight on the risks the characters are taking.
I feel like you were Inspired by the character Varric Tethras from the Dragon Age series for the character of Rowan, from The Giant Crossbow (Bianca) and very strong camaraderie with the main characters.